<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1659544129828,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b2-d172-a563-4ffafb0a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1659544129828,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b2-d172-a563-4ffafb0a0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_59536668", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1067909"} }); ","_id":"00000182-6489-df9f-abca-fc8bc9a00000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedDemocrats hoping anti-abortion Republicans will motivate their base and potential swing voters before November’s midterm elections notched an unexpected win this week in Kansas after the state resoundingly rejected a constitutional amendment proposing to remove abortion protections.
President Joe Biden‘s administration underscored the issue Wednesday by signing another executive order and convening the White House task force’s first meeting, one day after the Justice Department announced it was challenging Idaho‘s near ban. But Democrats are criticizing Biden for his lackluster response, while Republicans remain quietly confident abortion will not determine this election cycle.
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Republicans such as former Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp expressed their disappointment with the Kansas vote, contending that the fight for life against “the well-funded abortion industry has never been easy.”
“National pro-life groups and politicians saw the tremendous energy, excitement, and enthusiasm among pro-life voters despite the unfortunate mistakes made by Kansas pro-life leaders,” Huelskamp told the Washington Examiner. “This will certainly translate into strong support for candidates who support pro-life laws.”
Cesar Conda, Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) former chief of staff, analyzed the Kansas vote differently, arguing that Roe v. Wade critics had asserted abortion should be adjudicated by the states.
“Aside from ginning up liberal donors, I doubt the Kansas vote will have much of an impact in congressional elections around the country,” he said. “Inflation, recession, and crime are the issues that will decide the midterm elections.”
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel amplified Conda in a statement, adamant that Biden’s “radical” abortion agenda is out of touch with members of the public who “can’t afford gas or groceries.”
Polling released last week undermines Democrats insisting abortion will galvanize the party before November. Almost two-thirds of the public described Roe‘s overturning as a “major loss of rights,” but abortion proponents are uncertain whether they will vote this fall, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
The White House and the broader Democratic political machine are dismissing that data, inundating reporters with Kansas vote reactions late Tuesday and Wednesday. Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, for example, echoed criticism of Republicans who claim anti-abortion measures are popular but do not want them to be an election issue.
“While the fight to defend abortion access in Kansas and across the United States is far from over, today’s victory is a reminder that voters will hold Republicans accountable for their extreme anti-choice agenda,” Harrison wrote late Tuesday.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Helen Kalla emphasized Kansas’s status as a “red state,” though Gov. Laura Kelly is a Democrat, opposing the ballot initiative 59% to 41%. Kalla’s Senate counterpart, Nora Keefe, pointed to Republican candidates who had “wasted no time in staking out dangerous positions that would make abortion illegal without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.”
But for all the talk, White House and congressional Democrats have been criticized for their inaction — Biden, in particular, for not being prepared and lacking urgency despite the month that elapsed between the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft opinion leak and the final decision being published. For example, an interagency task force met for the first time Wednesday, almost four weeks after Biden created it through his initial abortion executive order.
That did not stop Biden from repeating that the Supreme Court “practically dared” voters “to go to the ballot box and restore the right to choose that the court had just ripped away after 50 years.”
“They don’t have a clue about the power of American women,” he said before the meeting. “Last night in Kansas, they found out.”
The White House has downplayed concerns that Biden’s second executive order, which directed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra Wednesday to consider using Medicaid to help women needing an abortion in another state, is incompatible with the Hyde Amendment.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also underlined a centrist Democratic and Republican complaint that congressional leadership is not seeking compromise abortion legislation on Capitol Hill in an attempt to make it an election issue. Jean-Pierre was pushed Wednesday for Biden’s stance on a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that would codify abortion rights up to fetal viability nationally but permit post-viability restrictions.
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“The president has been very clear on this,” she said. “The only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to take action, is to restore protections of Roe as federal law. That is how we’re going to do this in a blanket way so that women’s rights for reproductive health is really protected.”
